


Real Reality

by Emilys_List



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Office (US)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilys_List/pseuds/Emilys_List
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jordan and Danny watch the pilot of "The Office: An American Workplace," a new reality program up for purchase.</p><p>"Look, if you're going to do reality, it better involve screaming and nudity, and not… paper supplies."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Jordan McDeere, Danny Tripp, Rebecca Tripp, Jim Halpert, and Pam Beesley all belong to their various production entities (Aaron Sorkin and Greg Daniels among others), but certainly not to me.

They sit in bed and watch, she's enamored and he's bored, stroking Rebecca's hair as she sits between them, half-awake. Before it finishes, Jordan's on her BlackBerry, emailing the team to bid immediately, and Danny says, "J, really?" Without looking up, she says yes, annoyed.

"It's boring."

"You're boring," she retorts, hitting send. She looks up, smiling. "You're not boring." She leans across their daughter and kisses him.

"No one will watch it."

She pulls back and turns off the TV and DVD player. "I couldn't disagree more."

"Look, if you're going to do reality, it better involve screaming and nudity, and not… paper supplies."

"This isn't reality programming," she replies, waking Rebecca gently. "Come on, sweets, to bed." Danny picks her up and Jordan follows them down the hall. "It's not a reality show, it's a documentary."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the edict from your chairman, would it?" He settles Rebecca into bed and she gives sleepy kisses to both parents before drifting back to sleep.

"Love you," Jordan says from the doorway, watching Rebecca shift in her sleep, repositioning into stillness.

She joins Danny in their bedroom where he's down to his boxers, alternatingly skinny and muscular throughout his frame.

"Can't this be something great? An event?"

"Yeah. If it was something else."

She bites her lip, unbuttoning her blouse and throwing it to the hamper, and shakes her head. "It's captivating. It's – it says something about who we are, and it's revealing, in depth, and thorough… and I would watch it. I would let Rebecca watch it. My parents, if they could work their DVR or stop playing canasta momentarily, would also tune in." She shrugs, turning away to undress, as was her habit.

"Your husband will skip it. Hope that's okay." It wasn't, she wants to convince him, but she stews silently while they settle in. She rubs cuticle butter onto her fingers, hands, staring at the wall. "I'm hooked," she admits, "I'm wondering about Jim and Pam, and I know America will too."

Danny puts his shooting schedule to the side, peering over his glasses at her. "'Will they or won't they' becomes 'I do.' I've seen it before, and so have you, when it was every other show."

"No other show has featured normal people, average people living their lives. Two people falling in love, overcoming the odds in a grounded, real way. Real reality." Real reality. She notes it in her head.

"I think what I find most remarkable is your lack of empathy about public exposure. Wasn't too long ago that the trades, CNN, and Newsweek, wanted to put Jordan McDeere in the same sentence with 'sex club' and 'colossal failure of a hire.'"

She turns her bedside lamp off. "That's always been your favorite of my press clips," she says, lying down. He settles into her side. "The thing about me and Jim and Pam, and Dwight, is that we knew what we were getting into." He drapes an arm across her middle, an area that never fully recovered post-pregnancy. She thinks idly about liposuction and involuntary makes a slurping sound.

"The difference between you and Dwight is that you have the power. And, I guess in the case of Dwight, he thinks he has all of the power."

"And ninja skills," Jordan adds.

"Well, that goes without saying."

"We'll promote the hell out of it, have the cast on the morning shows, do a behind-the-scenes feature—"

"Since when does a network president plan promotion and PR?"

"Since I'm not the president of NBS," she says, irritated, "and I don't want us to be that NBS subsidiary network of gay hairdressers." She sighs.

"What's wrong with gay hairdressers?"

"Nothing. Some of my best friends are gay hairdressers." She pauses. "I'm not good at this, Danny. Being… less. I have to do something."

He strokes her hair, kisses her softly, but it does little to stifle the cacophony in her own mind.

Months later, she meets Jim and Pam at some network function, and she sees pictures of their daughters, and she sees they're normal and loving, and it's a good, soothing feeling, like it's okay. It's all okay.

/end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for taking a chance on this fic! I'm really curious to know what will happen with the documentary that is "The Office," and what format it might take when it's "finished." I thought of someone viewing it - and then I thought of Jordan - and this weirdo idea took root.


End file.
